Weaknesses and Meanesses

‘So throughout our life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people we most despise.’

I’m currently reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and I read this sentence, and i thought: this is so true. So I just had to write down my thoughts on it...

We’re usually the worst version of ourselves when we’re around people we dislike. We tend to get overly dramatic and we hurt the people we do like, just to ‘show them’ that they can’t get to us. And yet, that’s exactly what we let them do: get to us. We try to act all tough and uncaring, but in the end, the people for who's benefit we do that don't even notice.

It’s also true that  we try extra hard to impress the people we don’t like. Isn’t that strange? Aren’t we supposed not to care what they think? We don’t care about them, so why do we care what their opinion is of us? And yet, we dress our best, act more confident, try to be someone we’re not, just for the sake of those people that we don’t like.

I tend to do this quite a lot, and in my case I think it’s about the fact that the people I don’t like make me feel uncomfortable, maybe even inadequate, and so I try to make myself better. The thing is, it doesn’t really work. You’re still not going to like them, so why even bother? Most probably they don’t even notice how you’re acting, or dressing, so I’m going to try to be myself, even around the people I dislike.